Stickley eyes more company-, dealer-owned stores
By Thomas Russell -- Furniture Today, January 7, 2007
Manlius, N.Y. — High-end manufacturer Stickley Furniture is looking to expand its retail network with a mix of new company-owned and dedicated stores.
Stickley now has 14 company-owned stores ranging from 6,000 to 78,000 square feet in New York and Fayetteville, N.Y.; Hartford and Enfield, Conn.; Estero, Fla.; Boston and Denver.
While it hasn't decided on locations, Stickley wants to put several new company-owned stores in areas where it already has a presence but feels it could better serve the market.
Target locations include New York's Long Island, Boston and parts of Connecticut and Colorado, including the Denver metro area.
As part of this process, the company plans to relocate its New York City store and one of its Denver locations.
"We want to capitalize on the strength of the brand name, and we believe Stickley is one of the strongest brand names in the industry," said Aminy Audi, executive vice president.
Based largely on interest from some of its retailers, Stickley also is considering an undetermined number of dealer-owned dedicated stores, which would be in the 12,000- to 20,000-square-foot range.
Denver is a possible location for a dedicated store, but the company also is looking at areas where it doesn't already have a presence.
The program would be open to existing and new Stickley dealers, Audi said.
"We already have a few of our dealers that are leaning in the direction of dedicated Stickley stores," she said. "There are several locations where we would like to have dedicated stores, but it would take some months to determine those locations."
One possible location is Charlotte, N.C., which is within driving distance of the company's High Point showroom. This could allow the company to take retailers to the store during High Point markets so they could see how it looks and operates.
The added stores would help the company utilize the production capacity available at its three plants in Manlius, N.Y., Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, and Archdale, N.C. The company expanded the Manlius facility in 2004, and opened the 187,000 square-foot Vietnam plant in 2005.
"We have the capacity to support more stores, whereas before we didn't have the capacity to support more dealers and stores," said company President Alfred Audi.
"We want to grow in a very controlled and healthy fashion," he added, noting that the company predicts 10% to 12% growth a year for the foreseeable future. He said Stickley will take additional growth if it's there, but doesn't want to sacrifice quality or service to achieve it.
"We don't want to grow too fast and not have the infrastructure to support the growth," he said, adding that more definitive plans for the new store network should be in place by April.
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